with thee, O fair one; I am not worthy of thy speech; I
am torn by the contention of body and of soul."

Then Etain deemed that she knew somewhat of his trouble, and she said,

"If thy heart is set on any of the white maidens that are my
handmaids, tell me of it, and I shall court her for thee and she shall
come to thee," and then Ailill cried out,

"Love indeed, O Queen, hath brought me low. It is a plague nearer than
the skin, it overwhelms my soul as an earthquake, it is farther than
the height of the sky, and harder to win than the treasures of the
Fairy Folk. If I contend with it, it is like a combat with a spectre;
if I fly to the ends of the earth from it, it is there; if I seek to
seize it, it is a passion for an echo. It is thou, O my love, who hast
brought me to this, and thou alone canst heal me, or I shall never
rise again."

Then Etain went away and left him. But still in her palace in Tara she
was haunted by his passion and his misery, and, though she loved him
not, she could not endure his pain, nor the triumph of grim death over
his youth and beauty. So at last she went to him again and said, "If
it lies with me, Ailill, to heal thee of thy sickness, I may not let
thee die." And she made a tryst to meet him on the morrow at a house
of Ailill's between Dun Tethba and Tara, "but be it not at Tara," she
said, "for that is the palace of the High King."

All that night Ailill lay awake with the thought of his tryst with
Etain. But on the morrow morn a heaviness came upon his eyelids, and a
druid sleep overcame him, and there all day he lay buried in slumbers
from which none could wake him, until the time of his meeting with
Etain was overpast.

But Etain, when she had come to the place of the tryst, looked out,
and behold, a youth having the appearance and the garb of Ailill was
approaching from Tethba. He entered the bower where she was; but no
lover did she there meet, but only a sick and sorrowful man who spake
coldly to her and lamented the sufferings of his malady, and after a
short time he went away.

Next day Etain went to see Ailill and to hear how he did. And Ailill
entreated her forgiveness that he had not kept his tryst, "for," said
he, "a druid slumber descended upon me, and I lay as one dead from
morn till eve. And morever," he added, "it seems as if the strange
passion that has befallen me were washed away in that slumber, for
now, Etain, I love thee no more but as my Queen and my sist